Annabel Joseph ~ Deep Control ~ Blog Tour / Excerpt / Teaser / Review

Not all fantasies are safe, sane, and consensual. Welcome to the world of The Gallery…

Devin’s a pilot and playboy, as well as a Gallery Dominant known for his sadistic desires. Ella is a famed physicist whose quiet intelligence masks a depraved longing for pain. When the two connect in a foreign dungeon, neither knows that one of them will soon save the other’s life.

From such dramatic beginnings, a mutual friendship grows, along with a daring D/s relationship. Is their play merely sensual, or do their feelings run deeper? Within the opulent walls of The Gallery, Devin and Ella explore ever-expanding limits and test the boundaries of trust…

He shook his head and walked away, going for his clothes, dressing for a flight he’d take later, a flight I wouldn’t be on. He must understand that. I could never get on another plane, or a boat, or anything that would take me over the vast, unforgiving ocean that lapped this island’s shore.

Tears welled in my eyes as I stepped into my panties and then pulled a pair of jeans over my sore butt. I rummaged for a fresh t-shirt, and came up with one that said Astrophysicists Do It With Large Objects, a going-away gift from my Via Sofferenza friends. I shoved that back under the pile and chose a plain, faded blue one.

“Do you mind going to your own room now?” I said. “I need to do some work.”

“Yes, I fucking mind.”

His sharp reply took me aback. “Are you angry with me?”

“Angry? No. Confused. A little annoyed with the way you run hot and cold.” He glanced down at his shirt, also a faded blue tee. We looked like twins. He snorted and poked the air between us. “We’ve had sex twice now. I’ve fucked every one of your holes, twice without protection. I saved your life, and you don’t trust me?”

“I trust you. I don’t trust airplanes!”

“I’m telling you, they’re safe. Air travel is the safest form of transportation, safer even than walking. What happened yesterday was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

“Why does this matter so much to you?” I raised my voice, cutting him off. “If you want to get on a plane and fly to New York, then do it. That’s fine, I won’t stop you, but I’m not going. I’m staying here.”

Even as I said it, I knew I sounded ridiculous. I couldn’t stay in the Azores forever, only because I was afraid to fly.

“You’re going with me,” he said, yelling across the gap between us. After all we’d done together, all the ways he’d groped me, we couldn’t seem to touch each other in our matching shirts. “I said I’d get you to New York, and I’m going to get you to New York.”

“You don’t need to get me to New York,” I said. “I’m thirty years old. I have a doctorate in astrophysics and cosmology. I’m a grown-up person and I’ll be fine.”

“Grown-up people fly on airplanes,” he snapped.

I took a step back, trying to understand why he made me feel so harried, so scattered. It wasn’t only my fear of flying, and that he was a pilot. It was fear of him, fear of his skill at taking over my body. As we stood there, glaring at each other, I imagined gravitational waves crashing between us, red and angry and jagged. I could lose myself in him, in this man whose career was based on my deepest phobia…

My Review:

This was my first book by Annabel Joseph, I haven’t read book 1 in the Dark Dominance series, but that did not stop me from enjoying this little sadistic beauty!! But I will definitely go back and read book 1 after reading this!

Devin – a pilot and a sadist, is a Dom at the exclusive BDSM club The Gallery, where the women have to be sponsored to get in and are shared by all the Doms, with no safe words, so boundaries are tested. Being a pilot he has access to dungeons around the world. He meets Ella in a dungeon in Pisa, where she is involved in a scene, blindfolded and gagged, that Devin takes part in. This chance encounter forms the basis of their attraction to each other, but neither thinking they will meet each other again.

Ella is a brilliant astrophysicist leaving for a new job, but has a fear of flying. Devin is to be her chaperone to New York. Behind her genius she needs emotionless pain for her escape. A problem with their flight throws them together in more ways than one.

I loved Devin, not as dirty and sadistic as I expected him to be, but he certainly knows his way round a belt! He is attracted to Ella from the start and can’t get her out of his head. He has a bad upbringing with an abusive father hitting his mum, so Ella brings out his caring and protective side.

Ella is a bit more difficult to like, yes she is mega intelligent, but she has a problem with love after watching her dad lose her mum and it sent him a little crazy. She now lives for the pain and shies away from any emotional connection in a relationship.

Lots of hot sexy scenes, as to be expected, with spanking, bondage, anal, sharing (threesome) and more. A great read if this is your thing!!

About Annabel:

Annabel Joseph is a NYT and USA Today Bestselling BDSM romance author. She writes mainly contemporary romance, although she’s been known to dabble in the medieval and Regency eras. She is known for writing emotionally intense BDSM storylines, and strives to create characters that seem real—even flawed—so readers are better able to relate to them. Annabel also writes non-BDSM romance under the pen name Molly Joseph.